If you see the Sopranos, you're not going to be speaking in the Shakespearean English.
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English should be our official language. Reading and speaking English are requirements to become a citizen.
quote by Ernest Istook
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dogs Are Shakespearean, Children Are Strangers
Dogs are Shakespearean, children are strangers.
Let Freud and Wordsworth discuss the child,
Angels and Platonists shall judge the dog,
The running dog, who paused, distending nostrils,
Then barked and wailed; the boy who pinched his sister,
The little girl who sang the song from Twelfth Night,
As if she understood the wind and rain,
The dog who moaned, hearing the violins in concert.
—O I am sad when I see dogs or children!
For they are strangers, they are Shakespearean.
Tell us, Freud, can it be that lovely children
Have merely ugly dreams of natural functions?
And you, too, Wordsworth, are children truly
Clouded with glory, learned in dark Nature?
The dog in humble inquiry along the ground,
The child who credits dreams and fears the dark,
Know more and less than you: they know full well
Nor dream nor childhood answer questions well:
You too are strangers, children are Shakespearean.
Regard the child, regard the animal,
Welcome strangers, but study daily things,
Knowing that heaven and hell surround us,
But this, this which we say before we’re sorry,
This which we live behind our unseen faces,
Is neither dream, nor childhood, neither
Myth, nor landscape, final, nor finished,
For we are incomplete and know no future,
And we are howling or dancing out our souls
In beating syllables before the curtain:
We are Shakespearean, we are strangers.
poem by Delmore Schwartz
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Our common language is ... English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.
quote by William John Bennett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.
quote by William Bennett
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And then you have the classical ballerinas, they're like sopranos. Applied to the dance.
quote by Ninette de Valois
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I'm very aware when I'm speaking to the English of how flat my Mid-Atlantic American voice is.
quote by Martin C. Smith
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bliss the children
NOT SO Familiar
with the English word
the not-so-well educated
woman in her
fifties says: BLISS THE CHILDREN
and the English speaking
world laughs
and underestimated her
in fact
humiliated her for
her mispronunciation,
but i know
as i know her from the heart
being from the
country where i grew
up to be a man,
as she is one of those
childless women,
a product of the family-planning
imposing First World
God Knows not why
she couldn't bear
a child,
it is clear to me
she really means it
Bliss the Children
rather than
Bless.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I haven't spoken English with native speakers in several months. I've been speaking Arabic.
quote by John Walker Lindh
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Losing My Mind
“I think...”
I thought
but I had no sooner
thought the thought
than it claimed
independence from me.
“Thought is free! ”
it shouted in ringing Shakespearean tones.
I acted
at once
imprisoned it
in some deep dank dark dungeon
at the back of my mind
knowing that
if it succeeded
in seceding from me
& gained autonomy
that other thoughts
would come
(one upon one)
until they eclipsed
me in a wink
think me
out of existence.
I put down
the rebellion
with extreme
prejudice
but now find
I have inaugurated
Guerrilla warfare
as thoughts
snipe at me
blow up the bridges
of consciousness
that I think
into being.
I feel myself
weakening
and fear becoming
a prisoner
in my own
mind
kept in chains
(mentally speaking)
by the Thought
Police
and what
I am
thinking
of trying not to
think.
poem by Dónall Dempsey
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The government itself is running exactly like the Sopranos and they sit back and they make deals. And they say okay, 'I'm going do this: France, you're getting the pipelines.'
quote by George Clooney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I don't know anyone who curses the way they do on the Sopranos. Not in an Italian household. I never said the word hell in front of my mother.
quote by Danny Aiello
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Cafe On The Left Bank
Cafe on the left bank, ordinary wine
Touching all the girls with your eyes
Tiny crowd of frenchmen round a tv shop
Watching charles de gaulle make a speech
Dancing after midnight, sprawling to the car
Continental breakfast in the bar
English-speaking people drinking german beer
Talking far too loud for their ears
Cafe on the left bank, ordinary wine
Touching all the girls with your eyes
Dancing after midnight, crawling to the car
Cocktail waitress waiting in the bar
English-speaking people drinking german beer
Talking way too loud for their ears
song performed by by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Then I got out of the service, and I was going to be a Shakespearean actor.
quote by Harvey Korman
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I was in 20 Shakespearean plays by the time I was 20.
quote by John Lithgow
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There was certainly less profanity in the Godfather than in the Sopranos. There was a kind of respect. It's not that I totally agreed with it, but it was a great piece of art.
quote by Danny Aiello
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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yes, what if God does not speak english at all?
you were not born yesterday
and probably heard it before
that if your God does not speak english
then he must not be God
of course, something arrogant
hangs in the air
of this effortless superiority that
'englishers'
'english-plongplangs'
clai m, which, of course, we
always oppose and dub
as prettry dumb silly
but anyhow, yes, we are asked again
what if?
what if, this God, does not really speak English?
well, of course, he is still God
and he must not have considered the english language
that important
and i agree, even if i speak it,
i still have this language
of my soul,
albeit, in english, for you,
who does not speak my own language,
yes, of course, for you to perhaps
understand,
but i like it though, this thought
that God does not speak
the english language, lest, he may sound
so englishly, oh well,
arrogant.....
dear God
do you really...not speak english?
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I say this quite deliberately, this is the finest Shakespearean performance I've seen.
quote by Donald Wolfit
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In a Manner of Speaking
In a manner of speaking, I want to kill you,
said the drunk redneck to his wife,
In a manner of speaking, I don't love you,
said my ex (turned vegan) to me,
as I returned from a psych ward, hoping for
some sort of reconciliation,
And in a manner of speaking, the whole
world has gone to shit, that no mentally
unbalanced poet can improve upon,
In a manner of speaking, I was just a haiku
before I birthed an epic poem in 2008
and it went something like:
In a manner of speaking…
In a manner of speaking, there is plenty of
beer and loose women,
In a manner of speaking, there is plenty of
internet journals with useless information,
In a manner of speaking, there are plenty of
assholes writing about getting laid and anal sex
on MySpace,
In a manner of speaking, my friend got raped
a few years ago and now has occasional herpes
outbreaks, which are quite disturbing
to her husband,
In a manner of speaking, I'm losing faith in humanity
and love at times,
In a manner of speaking, we just go through the motions,
hoping for something to change or something
spectacular to happen.
But I don't really know any more,
trying to make sense of it all, screaming for some sort of
sanity that eludes me,
In a manner of speaking, I feel alone here,
unable to connect to what's around me-
I just told some guy at a bar that I was a Dallas Cowboys
fan and I don't even watch football,
and he told me to come in my 'gear' on Sunday,
In a manner of speaking, I feel somewhat liberated
because I have no clue as to what I'm doing,
knowing that there is really no escape.
January 8,2008
-Alexander Shaumyan
poem by Alexander Shaumyan
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I look at myself, and I see a Spanish person who's trying to be understood by an English-speaking audience and is putting a lot of energy into that, instead of into expressing himself freely and feeling comfortable.
quote by Javier Bardem
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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